OWIU Design is a full-service architecture and design company located in the heart of Los Angeles, founded by Joel Wong and Amanda Gunawan.
The studio works across an array of sectors including hospitality, residential and retail, and are renowned for their dedication to craft and strong sense of identity.
Based in Los Angeles, Joel and Amanda are originally from Singapore – where they first met – and both moved stateside to attend the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).
The duo partnered up for many projects throughout their time at SCI-Arc, and after working for other design firms, decided to create OWIU together. The young studio has since worked on a multitude of acclaimed projects, including Singapore hospitality hotspots Ms. Maria & Mr. Singh and GOHO Kaiseki & Bar, as well as a plethora of LA homes. They have also developed into a multi-pronged business with offshoots that include construction company Inflexion Builds and ceramics brand OWIU Goods.
Here, Joel and Amanda discuss future ambitions, team dynamics, and the OWIU philosophy, which has guided them on their design journey.
What is your earliest memory of design and architecture?
Amanda: Playing with legos and realizing the part-to-whole relationship when you stack little building blocks to create and transform a space. I loved that I could create worlds upon worlds just using blocks of different shapes and sizes, each of them with their own roles to play.
Joel: Both my parents were Architects since I was born and I have always been surrounded by architecture books and magazines in my home growing up.
What kind of architect did you aspire to be?
Amanda: I aspire to be an Architect who thoughtfully designs and values craftsmanship above all else. I would hope that all of the things I build would be meaningful and intentional and thus obtain their value through that.
Joel: I aspire to be an Architect who always puts the client and user first. I believe Architecture should be functional, aesthetic, and cost-effective. One that helps promote the mental well-being of the user.
What does OWIU Design represent as an architecture firm?
Amanda: OWIU is an abbreviation for Only Way Is Up, an homage to our relentless dedication to our craft, which is our motivation to constantly explore, and as we explore, our identity as a studio evolves with us moving our designs in the same upward trajectory.
We focus on thoughtful design and careful craftsmanship, and believe in building spaces that are not just built to last but to evolve as well. We take the past and history into consideration and plan for the future growth of space when designing. Because of our understanding of construction, we take into consideration a high level of constructability and efficiency while putting design at the forefront of what we believe in.
We’ve built our firm on the idea that the transition from work to play is organic to our team’s genuine friendships and the company philosophy. From the beginning, we’ve emphasized that pleasure should be inherent to the process and that work does not have to be punishing in order to be productive.
Joel: At OWIU, the cornerstone is precision and thoughtfulness. Taking pride in how this philosophy matriculates. We have developed a culture rather than a company, even outside architecture. One of the ways this has manifested is in our ceramics practice (OWIU Goods), born out of a team-building and stress-releasing, exercise, today, it is a robust home goods line and a service that we offer that furthers our aesthetic vision.
The team dynamic, the shared belief in the OWIU philosophy, the amalgamation of different personalities and skills, and the genuine friendship that is formed as a result of our collaboration are what provide meaning to the work that we do and it is through this, that we can create what we create.
How do you continue to carve your own path in the industry as a studio and an individual?
Amanda: As a studio, we apply the same philosophy to all of the design work that we undertake at both a macro and micro level. On a macro level, we take on buildings, houses, and spaces and on a micro level, we design products and home goods such as ceramics and furniture (something we are launching very soon). My hobbies and interests are very in line with what the firm produces. I love spending time in nature, taking photos, and writing – all of which you can see culminate in our ceramics line, OWIU Goods. Most recently, we visited Japan, a place of inspiration for me, together as a team and launched a whole collection as well as a guidebook on the places that we visited. I love creative projects like these as it serves as a visual medium for me to express my thoughts and emotions. True to the name of our firm, I strongly believe that the Only Way Is Up – a belief to constantly be better than I was yesterday, so expect a lot more creating and learning, the two actions tangentially working together.
Joel: We do things out of passion and love to see where our practice takes us organically. Over the last six years, we have grown from doing competitions or projects pro-bono to currently being blessed with having the freedom to select the jobs that we want to work on. We are constantly learning every day and furthering our skills as designers. We have also really focused on our vertical integration as a company, thinking about how we can bring additional services in-house so that we can be more efficient, and more diverse as a firm and spread our philosophies to other areas, like construction. This has allowed us to be more competitive as a firm and present timelines, especially, but also budgets that other firms might not be able to do while working with outside contractors, builders, designers, etc.
Where is the majority of your work based?
Amanda: The majority of our projects are California-based, namely the Greater Los Angeles area, where the firm is physically located, but we also have a large presence in Singapore. We also, recently, finished our first project in New York and are looking forward to expanding our firm to be bi-coastal.
What has been your biggest design commission to date?
Joel: We are actually currently finishing it up, it is a local project, here in Los Angeles and is on the first floor of a large assisted living facility in the Little Tokyo neighbourhood. It consists of about 7000 square feet of space that consists of multiple types of rooms, including a lobby, library, multi-purpose hall, and common area, to name a few. We are very excited about this project, it actually inspired us to design our very first collection of furniture, which we will be selling in the future.
What does the face of architecture look like to you in 10 years time?
Amanda: I would think that because Artificial Intelligence would be so advanced and prevalent by this time, there would be, more than ever, a strong emphasis on what elements could maintain a humanistic quality within art and architecture. Craftsmanship, specifically, will be more important than ever. Design decisions being derived from a human, not because of efficiency or rationalization, but because they are through emotions and experiences. Two things that an AI cannot simply learn overnight.
Joel: I believe, by then, there will be a lot more automation, spurred on by the increased usage of Artificial Intelligence. Allowing for more iterations to be explored in a shorter time period, hence, better and more optimized designs being created.
If you hadn’t become an architect what would you be doing?
Amanda: I think I would be doing something in behavioural psychology or neuroscience, but in my grandest fantasies, I would be a professional runner.
Joel: I would be an astrophysicist, or maybe, a guitarist.